Kill Bill: Volume 2 Review

by Susan Granger (ssg722 AT aol DOT com)
April 21st, 2004
Susan Granger's review of "Kill Bill, Volume 2" (Miramax Films)

Here's the scoop: Quentin Tarantino created this uber-violent exploitation film that was much too long. His solution? Divide and conquer. So, in Vol. 1, we met this strong, brave warrior (Uma Thurman), known as the pregnant Bride, who's out for a bloodbath of vengeance after that fatal day in El Paso when her wedding rehearsal was massacred by her former lover/boss (David Carradine) and his Deadly Viper Assassination Squad. In Vol. 2, she accomplishes her mission.

Having already dispatched two of Bill's four assassins (Viveca A. Fox, Lucy Liu), the Bride - a.k.a. Black Mamba or Beatrix Kiddo - goes after Bill's laconic brother Budd (Michael Madsen), who buries her alive. (Claustrophobics beware!) But lethal, hard-learned lessons from her cruel martial arts master Pei Mei (Gordon Liu) pay off, and she escapes to slaughter a cool combatant, the eye-patched Elle Driver (Daryl Hannah). Finally, after memorable moments with Esteban Vihaio (Michael Parks), it's on to the deadly dangerous showdown with Bill, complete with revelations about Bill's theft of comatose Beatrix's daughter, B.B. (Perla Honey-Jardine), whom he'd fathered. There's more ironic, melodramatic talk and less frenzied fighting this time 'round.

Planning for Vol. 3, more than a decade later, Tarantino says that Nikki, the terrified child who watched in horror as the Bride killed her mother (Viveca A. Fox), will grow up to retaliate. Meanwhile, on the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Kill Bill, Vol. 2" is a self-indulgent, audacious, excessive 8. Filled with pop culture references and iconic images paying homage to a myriad of action films, and seen together, as they will be on DVD, Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 pack a mighty wallop as an epic, brutal revenge thriller that's ripe to become a video game.

More on 'Kill Bill: Volume 2'...

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